Small Choices Move Mountains
Everything we do – or do not do – changes the world: others and ourselves also.
When managers or clients ask if we can do something odd or difficult and we say no, they look for other pathways. This is why “yes” people get jobs - we train people to need us when we affirm, when we come through. We also get to choose our managers and clients, to choose benevolent individuals who will not exploit us like tools. However, we may also train them to exploit us if we say “yes” without acknowledging what we want, our terms and conditions, and setting their – and our – expectations. They give us what we believe we deserve and deny us what we think ought to be ours. This is the primary goal of this discussion:
Valley of the Yosemite by Albert Bierstadt
We not only influence one another but our actions train others, and others train us.
Acknowledging or enforcing our desires sounds cutthroat, but it would be dishonest to deny that we have expectations. We have “skin in the game“ of our lives and success. The truth (which would be voiced if we felt safe) demands that we acknowledge expectations or cease helping people who do not help us. That is a waste of precious time or speeding our destruction. We do not have to hold to “quid pro quo, “ but we have to let others impact us, or we degrade and isolate ourselves. Isolated systems collapse.
True, good superiors, clients, or partners recognize our struggles. They may make sacrifices for us, but they make these sacrifices in the short term for better long-term outcomes. This helps them or helps the group, which satisfies their intentions of community benevolence, and they are rewarded. Their identity and self-regard improve; their causa-suis project is furthered, extending their legacy beyond death.
Our minds are dynamic entities that are always growing and changing through repetition. We are not as malleable as children but changeable like the paths of rivers in flood stages. Eventually, we form valleys and generally stay within them.
Only catastrophes can change our course.
Behavior solidification applies in spheres other than work too, such as sex. When a partner is turned on but turned down, they experience a chemical collapse. They learn arousal equates to disappointment. They learn to test the waters first. The couple loses access to in-the-moment, passionate intimacy. Over time and with repetition, resistant or fickle partners end up with scheduled sex lives, cheaters, castrated men, distant women, and loose pelvic floors.
We often create worlds we do not want. We train our partners to be weak because we want personal control, safety, or freedom but end up with an impotent pushover. We say yes to open doors and flex muscles of willingness and agreeability, only to be exploited by those we teach to be assertive, those we reward for exploiting us.
Summer Landscape by Ilya Repin
We create the world around us by action or abdication. This is the core concept of “sin," an archery term. We must know what we’re aiming at and we must stand strong, aim, fire, and try to hit, or we will miss. We must be ready to aim in response to others’ actions. That target is the world we want, and we are always, always creating. We are always moving, even when not aiming. One way or another, the strongest part of us gets what it wants. If our conscious self will not choose a goal, the subconscious already has one.
These choices become paths we walk down. They will take us to places we did not expect, but if we pay attention, we will draw maps. We will gain an understanding of the choices that create our reality, and we will encounter our subconscious intention. If we combine this attention and focus our intention, we will gain mastery over the outcome of our decisions.
And, season by season, we will move mountains.
